Day 12 | Mount Aso

Thursday 24 October, 2024

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Today was a rest day on the bike but not on our legs. We hiked a 32km round trip to the volcano crater, which was pretty amazing as it allows you to get right up close to the volcano.

We depart the hotel at 7:30am and head to the konbini to grab some food and snacks for today’s hike. It’s pretty cold this morning, about 10°c, but is forecast to warm up to 20°c later.

We start on a trail surrounded by big trees but the path eventually turns onto the main road for most of the journey up.

It’s pretty quiet for the first hour or two and we spotted lots of animals: elks, horses, crows and cows.

Eventually more and more vehicles start to pass us: cars, trucks, motorcycles and tour buses.

There are also road markings for cyclists but we only see one person in a bike the entire journey up.

The scenery changeds with every corner we turn.

We are surrounded by mountains the entire way up with great views of the town in the crater below.

Shortly before the rest stop area, we come to a viewing platform with more great views.

A short walk down takes us to the rest stop which has the Aso Volacano Museum, a few restaurants and cafes, plus an area where you can ride horses.

We continue on another few more kms and come across an area where you can take a helicopter ride around the volcano.

We find a hiking trail and follow it the rest of the way up until we hit a bus terminal. Some people park their cars here and walk the rest of the way, while others pay a toll to continue driving right up the the crater.

There are a lot more people walking up from here as it costs ¥1,000 to take your car through to the final road.

Eventually we arrive at the volcano. You can see the smoke rising and smell a faint waft of sulphur. We are surprised the smell isn’t stronger and even more surprised we can get so close.

If there are dangerous conditions the road is closed off but we are lucky to be able to go all the way up. The current safety level is at green today.

There are quite a few visitors today, with people wandering around taking photos and observing the volcano. It’s a only a Thursday so you can imagine what it would be like on the weekend.

We continue wandering around, noticing the ground which is covered in ash.

Eventually we start making our way back down towards the first rest area for some lunch. We find a hiking trail to stay off the roads.

A quick lunch to recharge ourselves with a pretty good view.

We notice a stall selling horse meat which seems quite popular.

The trek down is far quicker that the trek up, but we notice cars are now both ascending and descending so there’s more traffic than our ascent.

The speed limit is 40km but cars are going way faster, we figure because many of them are tourists renting cars. The weather stays overcast so it’s also noticeably colder as we descend.

We decide to head back to our hotel via the bakery from yesterday and pick up some extra goodies.

Upon our return to the hotel, we head straight for the onsen. But not before trying on our yukata.

The onsen is extremely welcoming for our tired legs, and the view is spectacular.

After a bit of a rest we grab a quick dinner from Hirai, the bento box shop across the road, and start planning for our ride tomorrow. It’ll be about 50km with one fairly big hill so we’re hoping that our legs have recovered from the big hike today.

Next post: Day 13 | Mount Aso to Taketa